Risk and Reward

Living as I do in a remote area, I am frequently grateful for the Internet and the ability it gives me to keep in touch with other artists around the country and the wider world. I can tailor-make my list of blogs, choosing only those that are specific to my interests. I can surf museum sites and online galleries, browsing the best modern and ancient art and craft and I don't have to go further than my home office.

When I was in an artists' support group some years ago, our only means of communication was by phone and the only artists I had met locally all worked in a two-dimensional medium. We do have lots of fine craft artists in Vermont but you could only get to their studios by trekking through snow or over muddy roads or just wait until they had gallery shows and hope that they were staged in the warm months.

So with the advent of the Internet I now have many friends online who work in various media. We have Facebook, Flickr and the blogosphere where we meet and converse and share ideas and critique each others' work.

But I think there are true dangers to the creative life in the trend to present your work in the social media. It's great to get your work out there to a wider audience but are we becoming approval junkies? Do you ever find the need to be liked shaping your art? Causing you to re-think a design? The risk is that staying in the same groove may win approval and nice comments on Flickr or Facebook but may cause us to play it safe when it comes to swinging out there to make innovations or try new techniques.

Although what I do is not driven by the market--that is, I don't sell my work to earn a living, I have heard from other designers that their customers do appreciate innovation and new designs. So the many online opportunities that exist to challenge your creativity are excellent motivators as long as you're not just turning in work to meet a deadline at the expense of quality.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am participating in Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party Three and our reveal date is this Saturday. I have a beautiful stash of beads and objects from my partner this time, Lyn Foley and although I have a design already sketched out, I'll be disappointed if I'm not challenged in making it all come together. For me, that's the reward for taking the risk of putting myself and my work out there. To find out something new as I'm working. To discover a new technique or a new material. To make a new connection with another artist. I'm taking a pledge to quit obsessing about recognition and get on with tuning in to the creative Muse, to let her inspire new breakthroughs and insights in 2011.

Here are a couple of photos of work that I did for a recent online challenge that has inspired several notebook pages' worth of ideas. It doesn't get any better than that!

Lantern beads - polymer clay and oil pastels

Evening of a Summer's Day

Polymer clay, agate, pearls, African glass spacers, Czech glass beads

Friends and Lovers

It's Valentine's Day and the popular media would like us to think that it's all about romance, candy, flowers, and jewelry. But I say it's about the gifts of inspiration that flow throughout the year from our relationships with creative friends.

It's a very new thing for me to have friends that support and praise my work. In art school, there was a lot of competition and negative criticism. We were told by our teachers that maybe 1 in 10,000 of us would actually succeed as professional artists. Of course, that meant painters. If you mentioned textiles or pottery, you would get a sneer and jokes about basketweaving courses.

After I attended the School for American Craftsmen at R.I.T., I began to see fine craft coming into its own in curatorial circles as a valid artistic medium. These days I would venture to say that people are collecting handmade furniture, ceramics, jewelry, baskets, and textiles as much, if not more, than they are buying art to hang on the wall.

This past weekend, I literally devoured the photos of the incredible work my friend, Cindy Wimmer, has done for the new Wire Style 2 book. I was so inspired by her bold, imaginative designs and meticulous wire work that I decided to transform a heart shape I was working on with wire, to strive for more than the simple polymer shape I originally planned.

Entwined Heart pendant

I've been working with tangling and kinking wire in combination with polymer clay for about a year and now have a much better idea of the properties and idiosyncrasies of this material. I've embedded clay into wire-wrapped bezels (see Belle Armoire Jewelry – Summer 2010 for a tutorial) but I'm also liking the airier feel of the floating tangled wire embracing the polymer shape--like the vibrations of a heart beating in synchronicity with her love's heart. Yes, I am a romantic! I'm sure there will be more work to come with this technique.

Around this time of year, and it's been a pretty snowy one for most of this country, I like to work in the color red, even more so than in other seasons. It's intense and warm, it reminds me of the heart's fire and passion and .... well, I just love it! I did up some mokume gane in reds in anticipation of getting some things into my Etsy shop for Valentine's Day but got sidetracked by a custom order. But I will be listing them anyway. You can never have enough red, in my opinion!

Watercolors cuff

Watercolors earrings

 When we woke up this morning at our customary 5 a.m. my husband, Douglas, handed me a card. It read “When my mind wanders, it always finds its way to you” -- opened, it played Sam Cook singing “You Send Me”. He had written some amazingly sweet sentiments inside-- no, I'm not sharing those! But heartfelt gifts like this mean more to me than diamond earrings and fancy dinners. Since his job supports me in my jewelry-making, I made these earrings for myself yesterday and counted them as a Valentine's present from Dougie. He approved.

Greensleeves earrings

Once Again into the Creative Soup

Soup has got to be my favorite food. Stew, goulash, cassoulet, stufato-- whatever the culture calls it, the melange of flavors, the cornucopia of ingredients, the surprising little bits of this and that-- it all comes together in the pot in a surprising triumph of cooperation of many disparate elements. As you're simply chopping all the pieces up, you cannot predict what the final result will be. That's the crap shoot, the risk, taking the leap of faith that you will get something great in the end from things that don't even look like they belong together.

It's 20 degrees this morning in central Vermont and lightly snowing. I can see my snow-covered meadow from the window above my workbench, where there are a number of projects in various stages of completion-- Valentine's presents for the women in my family, a funky little heart framed in wirework with its patina curing, lots of pairs of earrings that need finishing.

It may seem chaotic but I find working like this to be the best way for me to let the lessons learned from one project spill over and influence others I'm working on. Since I've become a serious, every-day-at-the-bench artist, I need to put myself in the way of design problems to solve-- they don't just show up in my workspace. As I've mentioned before, the Art Bead Scene challenges are very stimulating and I've followed Michelle Ward's challenges as well. Now I've got a new “design addiction”-- Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Party!I know several beaders/designers who have done a couple of these with Lori and loved them so I decided to jump in.

Lori asked each one of us to define our style so she could try to pair us with someone who was the opposite of that style. The method in her madness: “to get you to challenge yourself, help break you out of your design rut, so to speak”. And it works.

I was so fortunate to be paired with a very talented lampwork craftswoman and designer, Lyn Foley, from Texas. We immediately e-mailed back and forth and checked out each others photos and in a few days I received this bountiful box of loot from Lyn.

The only rule is you have to use the focal and the clasp your partner supplies in your creation. You are free to use any of your own stash for supplemental beads or the ones that your partner sends. I had immediately admired Lyn's ruffly flower beads and was so happy to see some arrive for me wrapped in palest turquoise tissuepaper! But then I noticed the nifty Steampunk-style found object focal in bronze that she had included. How to make a harmonious piece out of two dissimilar styles? Well, that's the whole point, isn't it? To give your creative problem-solving muscles a challenge, to jog you out of familiar paths and ways of working.


I'll be teasing you with some little glimpses of work in progress in the next few weeks-- the big Reveal Party will be on February 26 and all 210 (yes-- you read that correctly!) of us intrepid designers will be blogging our results at the same time. Fireworks in midwinter!

For more information on the Bead Soup Party, go to Lori Anderson (Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/1290276@N25/)

Wirework – What's Ancient Becomes New Again

When I first started doing polymer clay, I knew I wanted to incorporate metal into my work. There was something for me about metal as a supporting cast member that was important. Something about it that gave weight and stability to clay-- more than adding mere actual grams and ounces--grounded it, if you will.

Metal plays such a large part in our world of jewelry-making. Clasps, chain, bezels, jumprings-- all have their own special design capabilities and can be so much more than adjuncts to gemstones and beads.

As I was writing this blog this morning, I dug out some pieces I've made in the last year and found that more and more I depend on wire to provide an important design element.

From Kandinsky necklace

Copper wire experiment

Focal from Dark and Stormy Night necklace - Available in my Etsy shop

Wire element from unfinished necklace

Detail from Silk Road necklace

Clasp from Dzi bead necklace

Last year I sent a selection of my beads to a good friend, Cindy Wimmer who had been invited to submit projects for a new wire book by Denise Peck, editor of Step by Step Wire Magazine and author of 101 Wire Earrings and Wire Style.

 

I'm happy and proud to tell you that my little "Fallen to Earth" polymer focal pendant and beads are now gracing the pages of Wire Style 2, strikingly showcased in Cindy Wimmer's necklace of the same name. I haven't seen the book yet so I don't know if there are polymer beads used in other artists' work but I thank Cindy for championing the use of polymer beads in wire work in an important popular venue such as this. In the past I've provided beads for other artists such as Sharon Borsavage and Deryn Mentock and seen what amazing things a talented designer can do with them.

Rambler by Live Wire Jewelry - Pale blue faux jade beads by Stories They Tell

Vedauvoo Blooms by Deryn Mentock - Large beads by Stories They Tell

Among other contributors to the book are Kerry Bogert and Lisa Niven Kelly, whose informative and comprehensive website Beaducation has taught me so much about using metal and wire. Wire Style 2 is available now from the Interweave site and after March 1 from other booksellers.

Fallen to Earth beads

Fallen to Earth pendant

Color is My World - Part I

You know how it feels when you've been doing something you like so much and then suddenly a storm of commitments come up and you have to let the fun thing go for a while? You remember how good it feels to be able to do the fun thing again?

Well, that's what it was like to work on this month's Art Bead Scene challenge! I completed most of the Challenges in 2009 and then 2010 just shot by and I only got one finished and posted. I vowed that this year I would get back in the groove and do as many as I possibly could. By the end of 2009 I had a nice body of work that showcased my skills for any art jury that needed examples of my best efforts for shows and competitions. Although the challenges were time-consuming, I loved doing them. They stimulated my brain and developed my skills, both in creating art beads and in stringing them. Since I've become a serious, every-day-at-the-bench artist, I need to put myself in the way of design problems to solve-- they don't just show up in rural Vermont life.

So the gauntlet was absolutely thrown down when the painting to interpret was revealed to be one of the “Brown River” series by Wayne Thiebaud, a lively work depicting the Sacramento Delta in California, done in a primary-based palette of clear, saturated color blocks. I never work in these colors. I don't do modern.  Besides, doesn't Wayne Thiebaud do pop art pies and cupcakes? But I did ask to be challenged, didn't I?

I had gotten what I asked for-- in spades. The colors were challenging, the shapes were challenging. I wanted to use a new technique with oil paints and pencil but the beads I made weren't right for the application. I filled page after page of my sketchbook with ideas but it just wasn't coming together.

When I was in art classes in college, we would be assigned a design problem by our instructor and I would do what I called “throwing it into the 'creative soup'. I wouldn't think specifically about the problem for awhile; rather I would just go about my daily activities and wait for inspiration to strike. And it did, eventually. The lightbulb would suddenly go on as I shopped the art supply stores in Soho or listened to jazz or browsed some local galleries or even read a book. I found that activities unrelated to art frequently stimulated the brainstorm I was looking for.

In the course of an e-mail conversation with Barbara Lewis she recommended a new book from North Light Books by June Roman, "A String of Expression: Techniques for Transforming Art and Life into Jewelry". I ordered it and reading through the projects sparked inspiration for some quickly-made textured shapes that were slightly disintegrating. I envisioned these as pendants but couldn't make it work so I decided to string them in sequence. Next came textured clay coins that were colored with alcohol inks and liquid clay. I took some clay scraps in the painting's colors, chopped them together, and ran them through an extruder to make some mokume gane beads and headpins (it's a technique borrowed from Japanese metalworking). Twisted copper wire became the “brown river” and some larimar cubes completed the stringing. My husband suggested that the long length of wire work needed a color break and he was right so I wrapped half of the clasp in red silk.

When Thiebaud spoke at Harvard University School of Design in 1990, he responded to a student question: "What do you think defines an artist?" with "An artist creates his own world!” Amen.

Commitment to Creativity 2011

The past week has brought some serious meditations for me on the nature of inspiration-- what are the best ways to be inspired, the surest sources of inspiration, the very nature of the beast.

2009 was a banner year for me as far as inspiration. I followed the Art Bead Scene challenges closely and submitted 10 pieces-- almost one per month-- and created a body of work by the end of the year that got the attention of an editor at a prestigious jewelry magazine. Finally being published by Belle Armoire Jewelry in 2010 was a goal I could never previously have imagined attaining.

Commitment to Creativity #1: I'm going to keep the momentum going by doing as many of ABS's new monthly challenges in 2011 as I can.

"Blossom" inspired by Van Gogh's "Almond Blossoms"

But more importantly, I was inspired to develop some new techniques and processses that I probably wouldn't have stumbled across left to my own devices. I really love doing my clay work so I don't need any push to sit down every day and spend most of my waking hours playing with the stuff or sketching new ideas. What I need is a focus for all this rampant energy-- therefore, a creative goal on a regular basis.

In 2010 I engaged-- and was engaged by--other artists in collaborations, something that gave me goals to achieve and new directions in which to travel. I very much enjoyed working with Claire Maunsell and Rebecca Watkins - Artybecca for a collaborative Hallowe'en necklace and we are currently engaged in another with an “outer space” theme.

Bead by Claire Maunsell

Bead by Artybecca

I was truly honored to be included in making beads this past summer for Erin Prais-Hintz's ambitious gallery show and used that opportunity to push the envelope quite a bit, inventing a new process for metal-effect beads that I have yet to fully explore. But sometimes I like to let new ideas simmer a bit, like a good stew that's better the second day.

Beads by Stories They Tell for Erin Prais-Hintz's "Inspired By....." show

It seems to me that if you fully engage in your work, opportunities will crop up to play with others and goals will appear that will challenge you. So with a cornucopia of opportunities out there, why not choose the ones closest to your heart and passion?

Polymer Clay Daily recently posted about the RAD—Ring a Day-- challenge that ran for 2010, which had a fair number of polymer artists participating and while checking that Flickr site I found one that resonated for me—TADA, True Addicts of Daily Art. Their purpose is to “Commit to making progress every day of 2011 on your art jewelry creations. Show your daily steps forward with photos. Blog if you like. Goal is at the end of the year you will have at least one collection or series that is Show Ready”. I also like the tongue-in-cheek play on “tada!” I know that I personally love to see how people progress through their work, so I thought that maybe some of my readers might be interested in seeing how I do what I do. I can't commit to the everyday blogging part but getting feedback from you, my readers, will be immensely helpful to me since at some point I'm planning to write a book and need to know if there's clarity and inspiration in my explanations/instructions.

Commitment to Creativity #2: more blogging about process and sources of inspiration.

As you have come to expect, I will continue to pass on interesting insights into the nature of my creative process and provide enough eye-candy to keep you reading until the last line.

As some of my first creative forays of 2011, here are some new cuffs using a nifty mokume gane technique from an Etsy-available tutorial by Tonja Lenderman. Another mokume gane technique-- I'm in heaven!

Confetti Mokume Gane cuffs

Montezuma pendant - confetti mokume gane

And here are my first efforts into the twisty-tangly world of cordmaking, courtesy of the Diva Cordmaker available from Fiber Goddess.

I'd love to hear what you have planned to jazz your creative juices for 2011. As far as I'm concerned, there can never be too much inspiration available in the world around us. And that's definitely something to celebrate in the New Year.

A Few of My Favorite Things

As adults we aren't supposed to anticipate Christmas like we did when we were young-- after all, we are now the ones rushing around buying the presents, figuring out where to put all the holiday guests, planning all the festivities and paying all the bills. For many people, what's really special about this time of year just gets lost in the shuffle.

Although my husband and I will soon be celebrating our 10th anniversary, we still count having each other as our “bestest” gift at Christmas. And we're both still healthy and fairly active and that is quite a lot to be thankful for at our ages.

But I would be remiss if I failed to thank each and every one of you who reads this blog for making my days so enjoyable as I write down my thoughts and observations, knowing that someone is actually out there who shares my passions and takes the valuable time to visit and comment. I am so thankful that I have many good friends online that I feel closer to than any I have ever made in my lifetime, although I have never met you in person. Can creativity operate in a vacuum? Probably, but it's not much fun. I treasure the ability to share my discoveries, experiments and musings with all of you and am humbled by your enthusiasm for them.

I'm just bubbling with new ideas I want to share with you -- some of them are already scheduled to be out there in a public way around March. My wish list this New Year of 2011 includes making it to a major bead show, where I can meet in person some of the creative friends I talk to almost daily online.Also in the works in the next few weeks is a major update to my studio space, so I can get my kiln going and play with metal clay, as well as set up my bench with my flexshaft drill and soldering station. It's time to add in metals to my polymer creations in a big way, something I've been planning for over a year. I've used some found metal pieces and some  repoussé that Douglas makes for me but I've always had a better marriage of metal and polymer in mind for my designs. I'm so excited, I can hardly wait to get started!

Yesterday I played around with some old glass storage containers I found at a local yard sale. I plopped in some bits and bobs and built some seasonal tableaux with some of my latest polymer experiments.

Silver Leaves tableaux

Pinecone tableaux

Globes and Stones tableaux

  Here are some toys that Santa left under our tree.

"Red Fox" felted wool pin, from Under the Moon, Amanda Wiesenfeld, VT Handcrafters

Antique store find tool box, lovingly restored by Douglas

Present for both of us-- yipee! new techniques!

Polymer lentil bead from Mindy Jackson, Stray Cat Jewelry, VT Handcrafters

Lampwork bead from Wandering Spirit Designs -- present from my sis

And for a happy ending to the busted stove story, today I'm happily baking cupcakes and a pumpkin pie for Douglas. A wonderful repair technician named Gary from the Dead River Company in Woodstock, Vermont persevered through a snowstorm to repair my oven on Thursday night. Now, THAT'S customer service, Sears! I'm glad I went with a local company and supported my community.

Happy holidays to all and I'll see you again after the New Year!